Seconds, Minutes, Hours, Weeks
by the lola
Summary: In the face of heartbreak, time is often our only hope. Love is like war… easy to start, difficult to finish, and impossible to forget.


**Word Count: **1,013

**Challenge/Competition: **Masterchef Challenge/Competition Round 2

**Prompts: **Look, staring, Love is like war… easy to start, difficult to finish,and impossible to forget. (I used the first two words in the text, tried to make the last one an over arching theme.)

**Warnings:** Implied drug and alcohol abuse.

**Disclaimer:** I don't claim to own Harry Potter, it's all JKR's.

**Note:** I'm not sure if the timings in this make it seem dragged out... I worked really hard to make it flow, so I hope you guys get it.

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_One second_

Her head has only just turned away from him. She's still in arms reach. He could stretch out his arms, grab her round the waist, beg her to stay.

But he doesn't.

He couldn't ask for that.

_Sixty seconds_

He can just about make out her thin silhouette nearing the end of the winding path - it's too dark for him to see anything else, really.

The path isn't long, he could run after her - he _should _run after her.

But it's as if his feet are fixed to the floor and his body is frozen in time, frozen in the moment she said her forever goodbye.

The bitter cold dances around in the air, threatening to seep through his skin and fill his entire body with something even icier than heartbreak.

But there's his reminder – summer is most certainly over, and so are they. That's all it was supposed to be, wasn't it?

_Sixty minutes_

And he's still on the curb, staring at the empty space of where she had stood. Memories latch onto every millimetre of his skin, threatening to pull him apart.

Everything. Everything he's spent years building himself up as – unbeatable, strong, never to be tied down… it's gone and he feels bare, naked.

It was always Lily.

_Sixty hours_

It's unhealthy – he knows… sixty hours, two and a half days.

His shirt, alcohol and sweat soaked, sticks to his body. He runs a hand through his blonde hair, grimacing as the grease coats his fingers and a headache pounds against his temples.

As the scattered empty firewhiskey bottles come into his vision, he knows: his no drinking days are over.

The drink lets him drown in his present and forget his past, and that's the only thing he's ever going to want now.

A flashback from the either the previous night, or the one before slices through his skull and he flinches. _Her, Rose, in here – his… his office. Again. _

He just about supresses an anguished scream, instead slamming his head backwards on the wall, and ramming his fist into the marble floor, again and again until the pain is so great it's the only thing he can think about.

_Sixty days_

As he dares look in the mirror, a reflection he does not recognize stares back.

Two months… two months and no improvement. He's still as hollow as he was sixty days ago, and he'll be the same in the next sixty days, he's sure.

Ugly dark rings under his bloodshot eyes, translucent skin, and chapped lips all stare back at the once great Scorpius Malfoy.

A woman was all it took to knock him off his game.

And what does that show?

Weakness.

_Sixty days, sixty minutes_

Something in his world has altered… a switch has been flicked and he's not going to let himself suffer anymore. He's suffered enough.

His legs have finally allowed him to move in the direction of _her _house… he's not giving up, not yet.

But as the pastel blue door swings open, his resolve falters.

He watches as her green eyes widen, and a flinch flickers across her usually strong face. She walks away from him, but leaves the door wide open.

She knows it wasn't supposed to mean anything, she says… but her cousin? Her best friend? Of all people he could have chosen?

Scorpius knows, he knows so well and the reminder is just as painful now as it was sixty days and sixty minutes ago. And look what it's done… he ushers to himself.

She tells him he deserves it, but her face is soft.

He asks if this means something to her… if _he_ means something to her. The tension hangs heavy in the air, teasing.

Grey eyes lock on green and it's as if they have to remind themselves to breathe.

And all hope gathers up in this one moment, the moment that could be life altering – universe changing, heart pumping.

She tells him he should leave.

He leaves.

_60 weeks_

Sixty weeks and they're back to their beginning – summer.

Whatever it is that he constantly carries with him; it feels like a disease that he's going to have to live with forever.

By day it's a lead in his stomach, soreness in his heart, a constant line of thought in his mind.

By night… well, alcohol is his best friend and it stops the memories from playing themselves, over and over.

He doesn't deserve this constant torture, though. He tried with Lily, she doesn't want to know. Rose tried with him, he doesn't want to know.

Maybe he needs closure; he decides… one last visit to their beginning and their end.

_60 weeks, 60 minutes_

His breath catches in his throat as he reaches the rooftop. The evening sun beats down on it, just the way it did last year, and it's still beautifully peaceful.

But that isn't why his breath catches.

"I thought I might find you here," Lily whispers.

He squeezes his eyes shut, shaking his head and forcing himself to remember that this is just another hallucination – in fact, he's probably drunk or high or both right now.

But as he forces his eyes back open and she's still there, he sighs as a million memories rip through his mind, as the heartbreak, the pain, the remorse, the guilt, as everything comes flooding back all at once, he knows he has to make a decision. A proper decision, an adult decision.

He mutters that he came here for closure, eyes cast on the ground.

She says so did she, even quieter than him, but gets closer.

He nods slowly and deliberately, before taking a step back and turning around, walking across the roof and down the stairs.

A sudden urge overcomes him as he reaches the bottom of the stairs, and as he turns around his body collides with hers… before he knows it, lips are on lips and everything is melting away.

Maybe it's closure, maybe it's the end, but maybe… just maybe, it's a new beginning

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**A/N- **Guys, it's my one year FFn anniversary today! I can hardly believe how comfortable I feel on this site, as well as how much my writing has improved since I first began thanks to all of your support and feedback. I know I haven't updated in a while, it's summer after all and I'm so incredibly busy. If you want any estimated timings for updates for any of my stories, drop me a message.

So, a review for my one year anniversary present? ;) I'd love to know what you all thought of this, thanks everyone!


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